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CYCLESENSE THE TODSON STORY Most companies from the original bike boom are gone. This one survived. by John Schubert The year 1973 was a nutty time to be selling derailleur. It was a crude and poor-shifting design, but rugged enough for the way bikes and components. The shop I worked in, American schoolboys threw their bikes onto MLE Schwinn Cycle in Media, Pennsylvania, the ground. Schwinn sold millions of Varsities, and Alfred sold Schwinn millions of sold everything we could get, and sometimes we got six derailleurs. hundred bikes per month. Product moved through our Alfred’s success in selling product got the warehouse so fast it felt like a wind tunnel. Americans undivided attention of Huret’s sister compa- nies, and soon Todson was the American face bought fifteen million bikes that year. of Nervar cranksets, Maillard hubs and freewheels, Sedis chains, It was a different world then. Many of the big names of that Rigida rims, and Hutchinson tires. A few years after that, era didn’t survive, and those that did survive, such as Fuji and Todson picked up Zefal, maker of pumps and toe clips. By 1964, Raleigh, have different corporate ownership and different Todson had stopped bothering to sell American-made prod- countries of manufacture now. Japanese companies exported ucts, and focused entirely on French and Italian vendors. 838,000 bikes to America that year. Now they The early 1960s was a whole ‘nuther era. export less than five percent of that number. Independent bike shops The companies that dominate the distri- hadn’t yet lost most of their bution channel today were pretty much all sales to discount department founded after that original bike boom. The stores and there were at least as names Trek, Specialized, Giant, and Quality many of them as there are today (six Bicycle Products were unheard of. Cannondale thousand or so, depending on had just started selling child trailers, handlebar who counts and at what point bags, and laughably simple panniers. in time). But for people want- In the midst of all this, a small American dis- ing something beyond a juve- tributing company managed to adapt, change, and prosper. nile bike, good shops were During the bike boom, Todson was enormously suc- few and far between. OPEAK cessful at selling European products, and many of “Maybe five percent of the Y OF T S those sales were original equipment manufacturer bike shops sold the next level TE (OEM) component sales to bike producers. But in of quality, such as aluminum OR O C the 1990s, it cut that umbilical cord and started out fresh. Now it rims,” said Alfred’s son Neal, who T PHO designs and sells accessories that are manufactured in Asia. Those now runs Todson. “The higher old OEM component sales are now just a pleasant memory. But quality product was limited in total dollars and percentage of the company survived because it didn’t try to live in the past. sales. For example, Jubilee derailleurs were gorgeous, but if we Todson was founded in 1946 by Otto Todrys, who had sold three hundred in a year, we sold a lot.” immigrated from Austria eight years earlier. Otto had sold Todson didn’t just sell to Schwinn. That was an era when French bicycle brands to bike shops in Austria in the 1930s, and most bikes sold in America were made in America, and Todson he sold a mix of European and American products through his sold those French components to companies such as Ross, new company in the United States. Otto died in 1956, and his Huffy, Murray, and Roadmaster, among others. son Alfred, then in his early twenties, came into the business. “At the time, the French could be very competitive from the Alfred’s big break came in the early 1960s. It was the low end to the middle to the high end,” Neal Todrys said. Schwinn Varsity. Someone needed to provide Schwinn with “Maillard made some very inexpensive hubs and freewheels; derailleurs for all those Varsities, and Alfred represented the Huret had the Echo derailleur, and Zefal had some inexpensive French derailleur company Huret, which made the Allvit alloy pumps. We covered the range, because Europe was able to 32 ADVENTURE CYCLIST MAY 2004 ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG do it. France and Italy were real leaders in shifting. Then the game was on, and products such as the Maillard Helicomatic design. Shimano countered with its own long list hub (a wonderful concept that needed SunTour and Shimano were in the of design innovations. just a few design changes in order to fix market, but they were largely low-end It took a few years for all of this to its reliability problems), and into the products. It was a great time to be selling affect Todson. “By the late 1970s, we saw 1980s and early 1990s Todson was able French products. business going away,” Todrys said. By to sell components to new American There was a culture clash, though, then, European drivetrain components companies such as Trek, Cannondale and because business in Europe wasn’t as go- had simply ceased to be competitive, Gary Fisher. go as it was here. “When the supplier except among the shrinking ranks of tra- But by the early 1990s, Todson’s came over to make a sales call, I don’t ditionalist true believers. OEM component sales had finally with- think they were accustomed to the very Why did these storied companies do ered to nothing. East Asian companies competitive nature of the purchasing such a poor job of meeting new competi- had taken over. Meanwhile the French agents from Schwinn, Huffy, or Murray, tion? “The French love revolution and component companies were facing factory beating them up for price. They would talk of revolution, but they abhor closings, consolidations, and takeovers. shake their heads. They had to work on change,” Todrys said. “So either way, we would have lost our lower margins, and they weren’t happy I saw this firsthand in 1985, when I business,” Todrys said. about that. But the volume was so signifi- gave a speech to a large group of French Still, Todson kept trying. When the cant that they were able to understand CEOs about the American market. They German company Sachs bought out sev- the reasons for lowering the price. listened attentively, took notes, then eral French component companies, “But that was the beginning of their laughed when I hauled a scientific calcula- Todson was, for a while, a co-owner of downfall, because when Taiwan entered tor out of my suit’s breast pocket to show Sachs USA. “But it was a whole different the mix, they were always able to lower them how much stiffer oversize tubing ball game and we knew the end was near. the bar on price. The French have very would be on a mountain bike frame. (At We were no longer independent. And it high wages and they can’t easily lay work- the time, they were trying to sell moun- wasn’t going anywhere anyway. We ers off.” tain bikes with the same tubing and tool- weren’t price competitive,” Todrys said. It was in 1968 that Bicycling maga- ing they’d always used, and no one want- “We realized we had to change and zine ran its first photograph of the radical ed to sell those bikes in America). In the become an accessory company.” new SunTour slant parallelogram months following my speech, they didn’t Fortunately, Zefal was still in the derailleur. By the simple (but well patent- change their product at all, but they Todson lineup. In 1990, Todson sold ten ed) expedient of changing the angle of the rearranged the distribution system — to million dollars’ worth of Zefal accessories, derailleur body’s mounting position, no net advantage. In the end, Todson lost such as toe clips and pumps. But three SunTour ushered in an era of radically some accounts. years later, Zefal sales had withered to improved shifting performance. And while Still, there were survivors. And there three million dollars. I asked Neal when they were at it, they also changed the were rims, handlebars, and stems to sell. he decided he needed to make the painful shape of their freewheel teeth to improve Todson’s OEM sales continued with decision to divorce longtime partner ADVENTURE CYCLIST MAY 2004 ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG 33 Zefal. “It happened when somebody from East Asia, it’s easier for Chuang to spot bought a pump two years before might Zefal told me that the Taiwanese would trends and changes. Whether it’s a new decide to get a new smart-head pump for never make a better pump than the color or the need for a new mounting twenty dollars,” Todrys said. French,” he said. And at that time, bracket, you’ll see it sooner in Taiwan “The life span of particular models is American companies like Blackburn were than you will in France. very short. We sold the Zefal HP pump going to Taiwan and bringing back And boy, has the pump business for ten or fifteen years. Now the life span pumps that were innovative and cheaper. changed. is about two years. We have to keep “It was then, in 1993, that I knew I “During the 1960s and 1970s, we innovating and marketing. Customers ask had to get away from Zefal.” had about eighty percent of the indepen- for dual-directional action, the T-handle, This is how the Topeak accessory dent bicycle dealer market in pumps. the pressure gauge, and then the digital line was born.

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